"Although
health department of Odisha claims to have all facilities in place
for immediate treatment of dengue patients, most of the hospitals
including the MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur lack to
have necessary facilities to provide immediate treatment to serious
dengue patients coming from distant villages.”

HNF Correspondent

The dengue menace is back in
Odisha affecting over 1700 persons, most from Balasore and
Ganjam district. With the number growing everyday, hospitals are
finding it difficult to accommodate the patients and provide
treatment. The worst hit this year is southern district of
Ganjam where number of affected persons admitted in hospitals
has crossed 380.

Although health department of Odisha claims to have all
facilities in place for immediate treatment of dengue patients,
most of the hospitals including the MKCG Medical College and
Hospital in Berhampur lack to have necessary facilities to
provide immediate treatment to serious dengue patients coming
from distant villages.

While the National Vector-Borne Disease
Control Programme that deals with all kinds of infections and diseases
caused by mosquitoes has approved MAC-ELISA tests as mandatory to
diagnose dengue, equipment in MKCG Medical College for the purpose have
remained defunct since many days. The fact came to public only after six
students and one associate professor of the medical college fell sick
with Dengue and were shifted to private hospitals in Bhubaneswar,
capital city of the State.

Patients who came from distant villages and took admission in the
Medical College Hospital for better treatment were asked to do all the
tests in some specific city based private hospitals by paying heavy
charges. Many of the patients and their attendants suspect a nexus
between the private nursing home owners and the Medical College
authorities behind declaring the MAC-ELISA equipment defunct.

Many of the patients are also forced to take admission in private
hospitals and nursing homes because the dengue wards with limited bed
facilities in government hospitals are already over-crowded with
patients. So, the poor patients coming from villages are finding it
difficult to get proper treatment. In many cases, poor patients are not
getting proper treatment because they are unable to afford to the
treatment in private hospitals and the government hospitals do not have
space to accommodate them.

This year, dengue virus was first detected in the month of August. The
patients increasingly came to different hospitals in the later part of
September. Even though the government and hospital authorities got
enough time none of the both bothered to enhance number of beds and keep
the hospitals well prepared to deal with the situation.

By now, as per official figures, number of deaths in Odisha due to
dengue has remained four. However, non-official sources suspect the
number to be more. While distribution of mosquito nets and field based
awareness campaigns in places where the virus has been detected would
largely help in preventing dengue from spreading, steps to extend
facilities in the hospitals for treatment of dengue patients must be
taken up seriously by the Odisha government to bring the disease under
control.